


Workaround

by panto



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Christmas prompts, Episode: s02e12 Fragments, Tumblr: xmasprompts, getting into Torchwood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-09-09 07:26:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8881321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/panto/pseuds/panto
Summary: After what happened to Torchwood London, Ianto returns to Cardiff, where he wants to join Torchwood Three. But therefore he needs a plan - and in the meantime a job and money.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is a a work for the Christmas prompts (by xmasprompts.tumblr.com).
> 
> Day 17: Job(s) for money

“Thank you. Have a nice evening!” Ianto forced himself to smile while he waited for the last customer to leave the store so he could lock the front door.

He only just arrived in Cardiff a few days ago. Fortunately, he had found a small flat in which he moved in, the same day he had signed the rental contract.

Only a few days after what happened in London, happened to Torchwood One, Ianto had packed his bags to move back to Cardiff. He needed to find Torchwood Three and he needed to get in. Not only for himself but mainly for Lisa.

He knew he wouldn’t be able to afford a living based on his savings, so he was forced to take a job. And there he was, temping in a grocery store in Cardiff for the minimum wage. But not for much longer!

Ianto had managed to find out everything he needed to know about Torchwood Three and about Captain Jack Harkness. Tonight would be the night, he would track down Torchwood’s leader and introduce himself. And hopefully it would also be the night Ianto would become a part of Cardiff’s Torchwood team.

 

Ianto had a plan. Not exactly a good one. But he had no other choice. He needed to find a possibility to talk to Captain Harkness.

After he could finally leave his workplace he started out for Roald Dahl Plass. Torchwood Cardiff was located here; he knew that already. With a newspaper in one hand and Chinese take-away in the other, Ianto sat down on one of the benches from which he had the perfect overview.  He didn’t want to look suspicious and also Ianto had no idea how long he would possibly have to wait, that’s why he brought something to eat and the newspaper.

Eventually he was glad that he had brought some food, because he had to wait for over one and a half hours before Jack Harkness showed up. At a smart pace, Harkness walked past the water tower. Ianto quickly got up to follow Torchwood Cardiff’s leader.

 

He followed the Captain for a while, trying his best to keep some distance and walk in the shadows.

At a smaller park Harkness slowed down. He was looking at some device he was apparently wearing around his wrist before he quickly disappeared between the trees. Ianto hastened to follow the man in the coat, but it was too dark and the young Welshman wasn’t able to see a lot. He had to admit to himself that he had lost the Captain. When he suddenly heard someone yell out in pain he quickly grabbed a big branch that he could use as a cudgel and ran towards the yell only to find a Weevil on top of Harkness. They were obviously fighting. There was blood on the man’s collar as well as on his hands. Ianto didn’t think twice, he took the cudgel he had picked up and struck the Weevil.

The Weevil let Torchwood’s leader alone and instead attacked Ianto now. Ianto struggled against the Weevil and was glad when Jack Harkness managed to overpower the creature.

Of course Ianto knew about Weevils and had read about them, even seen some pictures at Torchwood London but he had never seen one in real life let alone strived against one.

He took a few deep breathes when the Weevil was finally lying unconscious in front of Harkness, a bag over its head.

“Thanks!” He said supporting himself against a tree. That was not how Ianto had imagined his first encounter with Captain Harkness.

“No, thank you.” Jack Harkness replied, looking at the other man for the first time now, “And you are?”

“Jones”, Ianto said, still a little out of breath, “Ianto Jones.” How was he supposed to get the conversation in the right direction now?

“Nice to meet you, Jones, Ianto Jones”, Harkness held his hand towards Ianto, who quickly shook it. “Captain Jack Harkness”, the man introduced himself.

Ianto needed to get this conversation in the right direction now otherwise Jack Harkness would disappear quicker than he had appeared.

“Lucky escape”, Ianto mumbled looking down at the Weevil that still lay on the ground. “I had it under control”, Harkness simply replied. He obviously wasn’t interested to talk to a stranger about what had just happened. But Ianto was not giving up yet, “You think so? Looked pretty vicious.”

Harkness just gave a short false laugh, but Ianto needed to continue this conversation. He needed to lead it into a direction that showed Captain Harkness that Ianto was the perfect addition for Cardiff’s Torchwood team.

“You are…”, Ianto look a step closer reaching out for Harkness’ neck, but the Captain stepped away. Ianto looked at the spot on the Captain’s neck that he was pretty sure had been bleeding just a few seconds ago. He corrected himself, “You were bleeding.”

“Had worse from shaving”, Harkness bluffed it out.

Jack was obviously not interested in having this conversation, so Ianto decided to take it a step further, “Looked like a Weevil to me.” He looked down at the creature again.

But Jack kept avoiding it, “I have no idea what you are talking about.”

Ianto turned his head to look back at Jack. For a moment, he just looked at the man in front of him. What else could he possibly say to catch Jack’s interest?

Before Ianto could think of something, Jack continued, “I’ll take him from here.” He picked the Weevil up and tossed the unconscious body over his shoulder. “Thanks for the assistance”, he said turning to Ianto one last time before he started to walk away.

“Any time.” That didn’t go as planned! Not at all. Maybe he should try again? Maybe tomorrow? I was late and he didn’t see any chance in holding Jack up and getting him to offer Ianto a job. Not here and not now.

He watched as Captain Harkness walked away, “By the way, love the coat!”

 

The next morning Ianto was sitting at his small kitchen table, dialling his boss’ number. He couldn’t work today. Ianto had better things to do. Things that were more important. He needed to talk to Jack Harkness again. As soon as possible. He needed to work for Torchwood. There were no other possibilities for him.

He hated the job at the grocery store. He hated everything about it: the store, the customers, the payment. But most of all he hated his boss. He was a lousy, old curmudgeon.

“Jones!” the voice of his boss was clearly filled with anger, “Where the hell are you? We have customers and the checkout doesn’t do all the work by itself!”

Ianto sighed. He knew he was already late and under normal circumstances he was the most trustworthy person, but this weren’t normal circumstances and now he needed a good excuse.

“I know I’m late and I’m sorry about that, really! The problem is my sister is in hospital and I need to take care of her children”, he lied, “School starts later today and I can’t leave them alone.”

Ianto heard his boss curse under his breath, “You will be here as soon as the kids are in school! Do you get it? Not a second later! And I’ll dock off your pay!” With that he had hung up.

Ianto sighed putting the phone away, but he had better things to do now than think about his job or his payment.

 

Ianto waited in front of the small tourist office near the Roald Dahl Plass. It was either the entrance to the Torchwood base or at least connected to it.

Ianto needed to convince Jack to offer him a job and the best thing to get his plan going was to offer Jack a cup of Ianto’s perfect coffee.

“Morning”, Ianto greeted Jack as soon as he walked through the door. He obviously hadn’t expected to meet Ianto here. Ianto wasn’t sure if Jack’s face expression told him that he was annoyed or simply surprised.

“Coffee?” Ianto offered him the cup and Jack actually took a sip. “Wow”, he said obviously liking Ianto’s coffee. That was a good start.

Ianto wasn’t going to waste any more time. Not this time. “I wanna work for you.”

“Sorry, no vacancies.”

No. Ianto wasn’t going to accept that. “Look, let me tell you about myself!”

But Jack already seemed to know everything about Ianto, “Ianto Jones. Born August 19th, 1983. Able student, but not exceptional. One minor conviction for shoplifting in your teens. Number of temporary jobs, mainly a drifter, until two years ago you joined the Torchwood Institute in London. Junior researcher. Girlfriend: Lisa Hallett.”

“Deceased”, Ianto didn’t want to talk about Lisa now.

“Sorry.”

Ianto was surprised at how much Jack knew about him already. Was that a good sign?

“Look, you checked me out!” He blocked Jack’s way to hinder him from walking away again.

“You knew what a Weevil was. Thought I was going to have to come ‘deal with you’.” Jack raised an eyebrow at Ianto.

“But instead, you can see I have the right qualifications for the job.” He had and Ianto knew that. Now he only had to convince Jack.

“There is no Job! We’re nothing to do with Torchwood London. I severed all links.”

“Yet when it burnt, two members of your team scavenged the ruins”, Ianto remembered.

“I don’t want the equipment getting into the wrong hands.”

“And you’re the right hands, are you?” Ianto had to continue trying, “Trial period. Three month.”

Jack’s answer was clear, “No.”

“Three weeks. Three days. Let me prove myself to you. I’ll work for nothing.” Working for nothing was a bad idea, but he needed this job so badly.

“No.”

Jack obviously wasn’t easy to convince. Ianto had to try differently, “I saw what they did at Canary Wharf. What am I supposed to do with those memories?”

“You are not my responsibility”, Jack looked at him. He was serious, “and we’re not hiring.” Jack walked past Ianto and Ianto ran out of arguments and ideas.

“Same time tomorrow, then.” He made one last attempt.

“There is no job for you here and there never will be!”

Ianto couldn’t do anything but watch as Jack walked away from him, “I really like that coat.”

 

Ianto’s day didn’t get any better. When he finally arrived at his current job his boss was clearly pissed. For the rest of his workday he made Ianto do all the donkeywork around the shop.

Ianto needed to convince Jack or else he was probably stuck in his job as a grocery store employee for the rest of his life. And even if he found another job, it would never be the same as working for Torchwood.

He needed a new plan. A better plan! It was obvious that simply talking to Jack wasn’t going to get him anywhere. If anything, it just annoyed Jack.

No, Jack needed proof that Ianto was definitely the right one for the job!

“Jones! I told you to clean the god damn floor! Stop dreaming already!”, his boss’ words interrupted Ianto’s thoughts, “You can’t even do an easy task, can you?”

Ianto needed to pull himself together or otherwise he would lose this job faster than he got it. And he really needed the money.

But he already had an idea how to prove to Jack that Ianto was the right one for the job.

 

When he was finally back at home Ianto gathered up all the devices he had saved when Torchwood London was destroyed.

It wasn’t a lot but he had to find a way to use the few things he had to his advantage.

 

It took him several hours, but in the end Ianto had finally developed a plan.

With the help of his devices and his Laptop Ianto was now able to track down rift-activity and extra-terrestrial life forms.

There were a bunch of different signals coming from Cardiff Bay but Ianto assumed that those were coming from the Torchwood base and Ianto wouldn’t have to take care of them anymore.

To fulfil his plan, the only thing Ianto could do now was wait.

 

The next few days seemed to be the longest in Ianto’s life. There was no bigger rift-activity in Cardiff, nothing that was big enough to serve as a good opportunity for Ianto to prove himself.

But then finally on Wednesday evening – Ianto had managed to connect his phone to his Laptop – the rift-activity-detection gave him a signal. Ianto was at work when the programmed phone alarm made him jump. Luckily there were no customers in the shop and Ianto had only been reading the newspaper and nibbling absentmindedly on some chocolate.

There was _something_ , not even too far from his workplace. Ianto quickly grabbed all his belongings without thinking about it a second time.

Just when he was about to storm out of the store, his boss stepped in the way, “What do you think where you are going?”

Ianto hadn’t even though about talking to his boss before leaving. His plan and Torchwood were way more important than anything else, “It’s an emergency, sir!”

“Yeah, you said that a bunch of times already. I am losing patience with you. Now get back to work, Jones!”

No, he couldn’t. He needed to find out what had caused the rift-activity. Ianto pushed past his boss without another word.

“If you are leaving this store now you are fired!”, the anger in his voice was more than obvious.

Ianto stopped for a moment. He turned to his boss one last time, “Sorry”, before he ran out of the store.

 

After just a few minutes of running Ianto stopped in front of an old, sleazy warehouse. His phone confirmed that this was exactly the location where the signal was coming from.

He took a long, deep breath before he walked towards the side entrance.

The door seemed to be stuck but it wasn’t locked. With some difficulties Ianto managed to get it open. He slowly stepped through the door not knowing what expected him.

The warehouse seemed to be completely empty. Ianto started to carefully walk through the hall. There was nothing suspicious in here.

When Ianto was in about the middle of the large hall, he heard a loud screech. Just when he was about to turn around to see where the sound was coming from, something hit him from behind, causing him to stumble forward and eventually fall to the ground.

When Ianto turned his head to see what had hit him, he saw the big creature spreading out its wings and flying towards Ianto with a sharp screech. A pterodactyl! A pretty big one to be exact.

Ianto managed to jump aside, losing his keys and the chocolate, he had put in the pocket of his suit jacket, in the move. He needed to get out of here! But first Ianto needed to get his keys back.

The pterodactyl carefully watched every move Ianto made and Ianto watched the pterodactyl. The creature took a few steps forward while Ianto took a few steps back. The pterodactyl carefully watched Ianto for another moment and then, in a quick move, grabbed the chocolate Ianto had lost just to fly away with it.

Ianto confusedly gazed through the warehouse, “Chocolate, huh?”

But now he really needed to get out of here! Ianto grabbed his keys and quickly ran back through the door, slamming it shut behind him.

He took a few deep breathes but couldn’t hide a smile. Now he only needed to find Jack!

 

Thanks to the files and information Ianto had about Torchwood Cardiff he knew exactly what kind of car the team had. Black SUV with ‘Torchwood’ written on the front sides. “Totally inconspicuous”, Ianto mumbled rolling his eyes, while he was busy hacking into the CCTV system.

It took him a few moments but he actually found some recordings of the SUV, showing Jack in the driver’s seat.

Ianto smiled to himself. Now he knew exactly were Jack was and he had found the best opportunity to show Jack that he was perfect for the job.

 

Ianto took a last deep breath before he stepped onto the street. Just when he was standing in the middle of the lane he could make out a car coming towards him.

Ianto had to force a smile back when he noticed that it was indeed the black SUV.

The car came to a stop only a few inches in front of Ianto.

When Jack jumped out of the car the anger was written on his face, “Okay, this has to stop!”

“No. Listen to me”, Ianto looked at him, his face serious.

Jack walked towards Ianto, “I don’t have time for this. Look, I don’t care what your problem is. I want you out of this city by sunrise. There is no place for you here. Go back to London, find yourself another life. Keep stalking me, I’ll wipe your memory!”

“No, but the thing is-“, Ianto tried again only to be interrupted by Jack, “Look, any conversation between us no matter what the subject, is over. Finished. Done. Forever! I’m getting back behind the wheel of that car, if you’re still standing in the road, I’m gonna drive through you!”

Jack was already on his way back to the car. Ianto took a deep breath. Now or never! “So, you’re not going to help me catch this pterodactyl then?”


End file.
